CCFC Asks Facebook to Scrap New App for Young Kids

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Adding to a growing chorus demanding that tech companies act more responsibly, a coalition of more than 100 public health advocates today called on Facebook to pull the plug on Messenger Kids, the first major social platform designed specifically for young children. In a letter written and organized by the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), the coalition detailed the ways the new app will undermine children’s healthy development. CCFC also launched a petition calling on Facebook to scrap the app. The action comes on the heels of demands from investors that Apple take steps to address the harms smartphone use has on children and adolescents.

Comments

Small correction: reference 9 should be about ads targeting vulnerable teens, which is not specifically treated in the linked article. Footnote 9 in the letter is the same source as footnote 10; it is about age discrimination in ads.

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1/30/2018  Adding to a growing chorus demanding that tech companies act more responsibly, a coalition of more than 100 public health advocates today called on Facebook to pull the plug on Messenger Kids, the first major social platform designed specifically... Read more...